


yesterday's sins

by macabre



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: AU, Angst, Crossover, M/M, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Freeform, Torture, noncon, unhappy endings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 15:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macabre/pseuds/macabre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>00Q AU: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, as inspired by this photoset <a href="http://benshaws.tumblr.com/post/35416262527">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	yesterday's sins

**Author's Note:**

> This is an extremely rough merging of Skyfall and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It is based more off the film version of TGWTDT than the novel, and basic knowledge of that plot is essential to reading this as I didn't go into great detail about the solving of the murders. Besides from lifting characters and some direct situations, I completely rearranged the timeline of the original story to suit my needs. You have been warned.

Serial killers aren’t really his thing; he can understand why they are a threat to national security, however national security for him has always meant threats from outside of the country – now he’s stuck babysitting threats within it. The case starts when an isolated incident is brought to their attention involving a missing girl, presumed dead, that somehow gets linked to similar murder cases spanning decades. Or so they think.

Bond looks over the files once and has a massive headache. The second glance just proves to give him more fatigue, but at least gives him a starting point. There are a lot of photos, and from them he creates a timeline of one of the murders. Then he has to look for the correlations to the other murders, a long list of them in which all or none of them might actually be the same killer. Bond is certain at least three of the woman are victims of the same man; of the others, he can’t be sure. Yet.

“Not exactly my thing, analyzing. Usually I’d be notified when someone is found,” Bond reminds M. 

“Not up for a little mental stimulation then I see.” M won’t even touch the files. “The gun that we point and shoot.”

Bond might have bristled at such remarks once upon a time; now he embraces them. 

“Fortunately for you, you’ll be getting help. A research assistant, not strictly MI6, as such you will disclose nothing outside of this case to him.”

“You’re enlisting a civilian?” It’s a ridiculous notion; they already have the best team of researchers, analysts, and assorted teams gathered right here in the building. They work there for a reason.

“He’s not exactly what you’d call an ordinary civilian.” M sighs, as if he anticipates the next question.

“Which means what, exactly?”

“He’s a ward of the state. His file is sealed, so don’t bother looking him up. We’ll put you two in contact with each other.”

M stands and leaves the room before Bond refuses. He wonders what he did to deserve the case, and how exactly one civilian fits into the equation.

The next day he sits at the National Gallery in front of a Turner painting, waiting for someone he has no idea what he might look like. There’s a man, late thirties, leaning casually against the doorway into the next gallery, or an older man with a slight limp, making his way across the floor. Neither spare him a glance, and neither stay in the room for long.

It’s then that a scrawny kid with glasses and a tattered coat that obstructs everything from shoulders to knees sits next to him on the bench. One of his boots is held together by a ring of tape, there’s a silver stud in his ear, and two of his fingers are taped together on one hand, one finger twice as big as it should be and purple. There might be blood under his fingernails. 

“What do you see?” he asks softly. Not the voice he was expecting for someone so roughed looking.

“A bloody big ship,” Bond replies, crossing his arms, hoping the kid will go away soon enough. He doesn’t.

“It’s a little sad, don’t you think?” He leans forward, all horrible posture and slumped shoulders. The shirt he’s wearing under the coat looks a few days old. “The inevitability of time.”

“Excuse me.” Bond stands. 

“007.” 

 

 

They’re sitting in the cramped excuse of a kitchen in Q’s apartment where it’s bloody freezing; Bond doubts he pays to heat it, or maybe if he had given warning for his visit, he might have turned it on for a guest. As it is, Bond knocks at the door and waits for the boy to let him in, arrival unexpected. 

“What are you doing here?” Q asks, nervously opening the door just enough to see a thin line of his face.

“Sorry. Work calls, and we didn’t cover as much ground as we thought yesterday.” 

Q just stares at him, hair messier than usual. He’s wearing one big, long t-shirt that goes to his knobby knees. There are bruises visible on his pale legs, a few more on his arms, although they’re older. Yellow now. 

Then there’s the rustling of something in the room adjacent to the tiny kitchen. Bond pulls his Walther and pushes open the door, putting Q behind him as he steps towards the room, the bedroom, he realizes, just as Q wrestles to get in front of him again.

“Stop right there,” he hisses, punching his thin fingers into Bond’s chest. A deep exhale, pure frustration. “I’ll get rid of him. Just a moment.” 

Q takes a moment to collect himself, breathing in and out a few times while patting his hair down, then disappears into an open doorway where Bond can just make out the bare, hairy legs of a man under the sheets. Murmurs, the wet noise of a kiss, and the wrestling of clothing. Before they can emerge, Bond sits at the tiny, two person table to offer them the illusion of privacy. 

The man is less a man and more of a boy, around the same age as Q, but with a thicker physique and more hair than is strictly necessary. Bond is impressed by the way Q carefully manhandles him out the door, and if he wondered whether the two were monogamous, well, it’s clear from the way Q all but slams the door shut that it’d be for not. 

“At least you had the decency to bring breakfast.”

“Coffee and bagels, or muffins if you prefer.” 

Q opens the bags and sighs, ignoring the Styrofoam cup and reaching for a mug on top of his fridge. Puts a kettle on and sits across from Bond. “I don’t do coffee.”

“Noted.”

They assess each other, Q glaring possibly because he suspects, and rightly so, that this will not be the first time Bond trespasses on his apartment, and Bond might be searching for what is so special about this boy. 

“Right, did you look through the rest of the information I gave you?” A nod. “Where is it?”

Q taps his temple, pulling out a laptop and letting the light wash him out in an otherwise dark room. Bruises under his eyes. Bruises everywhere. Bond might be concerned with the men he likes to pick up. 

“What did you do with the hard copy?” 

“Burned it. I don’t need it.” Manic typing on the keyboard, then: “This is what I have so far. The codes you gave me, they’re Bible verses, and from that I’ve sorted out which of the women are actually victims of our killer. Toss out Jessica Brown and Patricia Collins. Not biblical names, nor are they Jewish, if you’re following me so far.”

He makes everything sound so simple. Bond might feel like a fool sitting there, but it’s mostly because it’s at his ridiculous breakfast table, with the empty hanging basket, nothing of substance in the kitchen unless he’s counting tea, which he’s not, and the layer of cat hair, long and black. Eventually he sees the scoundrel stretching in the bedroom, slinking over to his side and rubbing against his pants. 

“Cat,” he greets, finishing the last of his coffee. Q raises an eyebrow, as if thoroughly unimpressed with his contributions so far. Shrugging, he mentions the timeline he’s put together, and Q just blank stares. Guess he’s figured that out too already.

Well, there had to be a reason MI6 brought in a civilian, and Bond should no more feel threatened or embarrassed by the situation than he should when Q suggests he get his car and start running trips to the countryside. 

 

 

Q has him driving halfway around the country the first day, then the rest of the way across the next. Tomorrow he might as well find himself in Northern Ireland. He sighs, wiggling the earpiece. 

“Did you check the police department in Hull, then?” Q chirps, seemingly out of nowhere. His correspondence is random at best. 

“Of course. Spoke to our detective there. Nothing missing.” He’s bloody freezing because he thought it’d be easier to take a bike instead of his car. “Find anything new there?”

“The name of someone honeymooning the day of the disappearance of Harriet Vanger. I want you to go there next and see if she recalls anything at all. Ask for their honeymoon photos.”

Grimacing, Bond starts the engine. He hardly thinks MI6 would support him tracking down old wedding photos, but their leads are already running short. “Right. Address?”

 

 

“Q!” Bonds shouts into the microphone in his helmet, not because he needs to – the thing picks up just the sound of his breathing well enough – but because the boy won’t answer. Hasn’t answered in the past several hours after repeated attempts. “Q!”

The honeymoon photos have yielded something they can possibly use, but he’s not sure because he doesn’t have a blasted computer to research anything, nor does he have a photographic memory. He hopes Q isn’t answering because he’s way ahead of him and has worked something out, or if he’s being truly optimistic, has the entire damned thing solved by the time he gets back. 

It’s just past three in the morning when exits the motorway, and instincts won’t be ignored. If he found anything substantial, Q would have been in contact by now. If he’s found nothing at all, he still should have been in contact in the case that Bond did find something. He gets the feeling that Q isn’t in contact with many people. It should just be Bond, no excuses. 

Q isn’t home. Bond waits around for a few minutes, his only companion the cat who refuses to keep quiet so he can think. He peels open a can of cat food and drops it on the floor, then calls Moneypenny.

“Patch me to M,” he says. She doesn’t say a word before connecting him. 

“If I were missing a Q, any idea where I could find him?”

“For God’s sake, Bond, you’re investigating a killer. Telling me you’ve lost him isn’t reassuring.”

Bond rotates his fingers one by one, cracking them. “So you’re telling me he’s not the type to spontaneously take holidays in the middle of a business venture?”

“Find him.” M disconnects. 

There is only a short list of things Bond knows about Q, and taking another tour through his apartment does not yield many more. There is no phone, certainly no cell phone to pull contacts from. The only name he finds in the entire apartment tacked to the bare wall in his room belongs to someone who customizes computer orders; when Bond calls, the man confirms he heard from Q two days ago about a new order. That doesn’t explain where he is now – 

But then he remembers. Q is a ward of the state.

 

 

It comes together so quickly.

Not quickly enough. 

There’s a janitor at the building that tells him, before he flexes much, that there’s a kid matching Q’s description seeing a counselor in the building. The good counselor isn’t there. Neither, of course is Q. 

Finding the man’s address is too easy, even without the government access he would have found it within a half-hour. He rings the doorbell just for the pleasure of knocking the door in on the man’s robust face and gut. Unfortunately, it means his nose is already broken. 

Grabbing him by the throat, Bond pulls him towards the back of the apartment where he can smell it. The sex. The blood. In the bedroom, the first thing he notices is the handcuffs on the headboard. Rope too, a video recorder. This is not the first time he’s seen these things, and while he’s never left them unheeded, today he will take his time. Throwing the perpetrator into the wall, he breaks certainly one arm while twisting it behind the fat bastard’s back, and possibly the other while tying them. It’d be better for him if he stops struggling. He doesn’t, and Bond minds not a bit.

There’s no need to ask where Q is; Bond hears him. A soft tapping, to the average passerbyer, some annoying, incessant noise that could be from anything – leaky faucet or a rat. 

It’s a SOS. 

In the attached bathroom, there’s Q, chained to the radiator. Eyes wide, but vacant. Glossy. Drugged, then. He’s got no clothing, just the cuff on his wrist which he clinks slowly to the radiator. Blood all over his face, a starkly clean chest minus bruising, then the most blood below the waist. 

He takes one look at Bond, or around Bond to be more accurate, and lets his strung out body collapse against the wall in relief. Closes his eyes, but his shaking is so bad he can’t seem to keep them shut. His eyes jump, never quite focusing on his face as Bond kneels next to him. Q can’t quite focus on anything, even though it’s clear he’s trying. 

“I want out.” He croaks. His lip is split, and not in just one crack, but it’s split all the way across his upper lip. It gushes blood and gore when he tries to speak. It’ll need stitches. “I want out now.” 

Bond nods, but Q grabs him with his free hand, trying to pull at him. It feels like nothing. 

“Don’t touch him.”

He tries to stand on his own, and maybe in his head he is successful. In reality, Bond watches his knees shake at a velocity all their own until they break backwards, bending under his body. He won’t support any of his own weight. 

“I want him. I’m going to – to – “ but Q never finishes. He can’t stand, let alone take his revenge. 

Bond carries him out in his jacket and shirt because he won’t dress him in anything that’s been in that apartment. Q’s skin is sticky and hot. He’s conscious most of the car ride, but he still can’t look straight at anything, eyes rolling one way and the other.

It’s a relief when the medics put him under. 

 

 

Q never goes to a real hospital; the medics at a satellite MI6 facility agree to treat him. Bond is partially grateful – they are doctors who have certainly see all injuries, so they clean Q up without any looks, but they also pass him off as soon as they’re done. He’s still drugged up on painkillers and stubbornly fighting the fatigue when Bond accepts him. Q resists the handling, but can’t stand long on his own. It’s an interesting dance: Q ping pongs off Bond onto the wall, then back into his arms when he can’t move.

It’s to no surprise that Q moves straight towards the shower when they make it back to his apartment. 

“Are you alright on your own?” Bond asks quietly, turning on the water for him. Q doesn’t even acknowledge him, just reaches around him, turning the temperature up as high as it’ll go. The knob in the shower creaks, and the pitch of the water hurts his ears. 

He stumbles off Bond’s side and pulls at his shirt – Bond’s shirt – but can’t lift his arms up over his head. He doesn’t seem to remember it’s a button-up, but Bond mutely excuses himself to stand outside the cracked bathroom door. He knows there are lines drawn that have now been erased, but that doesn’t mean he can’t save Q some dignity. There are some things made only worse by the fact that someone has witnessed it. 

He also knows that Q will never get out of that shower on his own. After a respectable amount of time alone, long after he hears the thud of a body hitting the floor of the tub, Bond noisily enters the bathroom again, pulls out a towel and a Q. There are only weak protests. 

“I’m putting you to bed now,” Bond says. As soon as he helps Q onto his mattress, the cat is there, curling around Q’s head before Bond can even pull the comforter up. The hacker’s eyes are open, but he’s not focused again. Bond is glad. “I’m going to stay. I’ll be outside the door.”

The blankets are pulled up. The lights turned out. Bond sits at the cramped kitchen table and looks through old photos, trying not to think about those lips, lips that once were whole and now whole only in thread. Black thread, red lips. Blood in his teeth. 

 

 

“You’re about to drool all over the papers,” Q says, settling into the table with his cup of tea. His words sound thick, and he doesn’t offer Bond anything. They both ignore the pronounced, stiff movement of his body.

“Perfectly awake and functioning, thank you.” 

It’s early the next morning and Q has gone the route of ignorance and nonchalance. Maybe Bond’s grateful. Mostly he’s afraid for the time when Q does want to acknowledge events. 

“I see you haven’t made much progress without me.” The typing is furious, or was it always that angry? 

“I was told that processing was rather your job description.”

“Yes, and you’re here to pull the trigger when the times comes.”

“Someone has to.”

A pause in typing, then everything resumes.

 

 

A few days pass; Bond makes a couple of runs, but mostly tiptoes around Q for the time being. His counselor never makes the newspaper, but Bond gets the supplies Q requests once he is well enough to pretend he’s fine outside of his bed or kitchen table. While his curiosity is piqued, he respectfully stays out of the way. He never sees Q leave the apartment in those days, but he also makes sure to give him time alone. 

“007,” Q says, his voice perfectly polished on the phone line, “pick me up immediately. We’re going to interview more of the Vanger family.”

The family of the only victim reported missing lives on the opposite coast, and on the drive they discuss what they know so far. The acts of violence and their corresponding biblical references. Someone really hates women, that much is clear.

Some time passes in which they say little. They have nothing between them except several dead bodies, no other common ground to stand on. Bond wonders if Q suspects exactly how close he is to the case; when he looks at the marks on the victim’s neck in one picture, he sees himself holding another man’s neck and snapping it. Strangling takes too long; snapping a neck leaves similar bruises, just faded. Quicker, cleaner.

Bond wonders if Q could guess that when he looks at his puffy lips, red with that line of black thread through the upper one, that he sees a woman’s face he had to bite through to get away once.

“He was new.” Q says right before the land drops away into sea. “Before him I had a counselor who put up with a lot. I think I literally gave him his stroke.”

Bond wants to ask why he’s a ward of the state. He just doesn’t. 

 

 

“And is there any motive within the family? Anyone who would possibly want Harriet gone?” Q is good at interviewing delicate subjects, it turns out. Surprising? Bond’s not sure. He tiptoes around certain words and the certain possibility – that Harriet is dead. 

“We’re talking about the most detestable collection of people that you will ever meet. Yes, there could certainly be motive within the family.” Harriet’s great-uncle. Henrik, is entertaining, to be sure. The family is wealthy, known not only in this country, but across most of Europe. Unfortunately, the only thing Bond finds interesting about him is his liquor cabinet. 

That and the Nazi family member apparently still living on the grounds. Bond knows the family was well connected with that party, but the man must be ancient now. Either way, it’s much more interesting than the collection of flowers hanging on the wall. 

“Those are from her, and the rest from her killer.” They are a neat row after row. All perfectly framed and square, and the closer Bond gets –

“I’m not an expert in hand signature, but I would certainly say –“

“They’re from the same person,” Q finishes for him. They exchange a quick look.

“Mr. Vanger, who would you say was closest to Harriet beside yourself?”

 

 

Anita Vanger ends up being a dead end. She’s far less inclined to speak about Harriet or her disappearance, instead reminding them of their failed job.

“Why the sudden interest in Harriet’s case?” Anita asks, shuffling work papers. She won’t see them outside her office, a fact neither of them misses. 

“Mr. Vanger’s health is declining. I suppose he just wants his answers,” Q says. “Thank you for your time.”

“Did you interview all of my family?” Anita asks as they rise from their seats.

“Everyone willing to talk.” There are more than a few Vangers left, and both Q and Bond did their best to interview everyone, but they all said about the same, sounded about the same. It was terrible, what happened to Harriet, and more terrible not knowing, but none of them had any particular faith that something would be uncovered. For them, Harriet was just a buried memory that they were unwilling to unearth.

Anita nods, wishing them good luck. There are hardly any words that Bond hates more.

 

 

“Rape, torture, fire, animals, religion. Am I missing anything?” Bond paces the floor in Q’s tiny apartment. Four paces across the kitchen. Four steps and he could be out the door.

He thinks about the phone call with M last night; he said nothing of their progress, or about the job at all. M still understood what the call was for – and he hung up before Bond could ask.

“Tell me, why Vanger?” Q doesn’t look up from the computer, biting the end of a pen in his dull moments. “Is he that well connected with the government? Out of all the girls, why are we focusing on Harriet?”

“Her body was never found, as you well know, while most of the other cases were closed shortly after opened. Husbands killing their wives in passion. A neighbor sentenced for the one, right?” Bond is going mad. Certifiably, soon. “And yes, it’d be stupid to ignore his influence.”

Four paces in the kitchen. Six in the bedroom. Two in the bathroom. 

“First murder in 1947.” Q rubs his forehead, and in less than ten seconds, he’ll glance at his tea kettle.

Three. Two. One. 

It’s all so easy. Predictable. Pattern after pattern. Bond figures out people in the space and time of a handshake. He knows that the especially slumped posture Q has whenever Bond is present isn’t developed, not from the shame of seeing him at his worst, but from the need to make himself appear smaller from four foster homes, like a retreating wild animal whenever someone is around. There’s a small tattoo on his side that Q never would have gotten if not to cover up what must have previously been extremely discolored skin from some kind of scar. The fingers on his right hand aren’t straight, indicating they’ve been broken at some point. While he was young most likely, because Q writes with his left hand but leads with the right, as if he used to be right-handed and now passes for ambidextrous. 

He sees the other things too – the innocent things. Q does his best work between 11 PM and 3 AM. Drinks on average four cups of coffee during that time frame alone. He hasn’t named his cat, nor does Bond think he’s ever named any kind of pet before. 

He wears long sleeves always not because he refuses to heat his tiny apartment, but because he leaves red marks all down his arms despite trimming his fingernails into obscurity. This is not something he often does. It might even be a recent development within the past week, or perhaps it emerges when the abuse is worst. 

Bond has been mistaken for a white knight before. 

“I’m going out for some air,” he says. Q doesn’t look up, marking something on a paper with a circular stain from his tea cup. More efficient than highlighting, he says.

He doesn’t think Q would mistake him for a knight anyway.

 

 

“I think we need to go back to the coast,” Q says two mornings later. Mornings are the worst for Q. He’s most easily frustrated then, ready to admit his shortcomings in the facts. 

“To the Vangers.” Bond uncrosses his arms. Q easily picks up on Bond’s own frustrations, and he tries to be conscious of it. They spend too much time together in small spaces. Things are turning between them. 

“Yes. They’re the only ones who at least try and answer the questions.” Q packs only his laptop and notes. “Besides, we didn’t talk to all of them yet.”

“Right. I’ll just get the car.” He punches a hole in a plaster wall the next level down in the building because his knuckles itch. 

 

 

“His name’s been taken off the list in the lobby.”

“I didn’t touch him, but I’m required to debrief all situations.”

“Do you know where they removed him to?”

“No.”

Pause. 

“Did you do whatever you needed to do?”

“Yes.”

“I could find him again. If you want.”

“Unnecessary. I can find him myself if need be.”

 

 

“He’s our best suspect.”

They sit in the car momentarily, looking at the old stone house in front of them, just down the road from Henrik’s. Cold looking, just like the rest of them. Q, for whatever reason, seems hesitant to move. 

“Best suspect doesn’t mean anything.” 

“Best means best.” Bond slides a hand over his jacket, feels the Walther there. Q stirs, having not said a word about the shallow cuts on his knuckles. “You coming?”

“If it prevents you from shooting an innocent man, always.” 

Bond doesn’t look too closely into the tight feeling in his chest when Q infers to a timeline past the one they’ve been assigned. “No man here is innocent. You should remember that.” 

Nodding, Q walks close to his back, letting him take point, but not because he’s scared. He walks without any weapon, but his breathing is even. His body relaxed. 

Harald Vanger is too old to be much of a threat now, old enough that he could have conducted all the murders. There is little evidence outside that and his particular political views that would have put him at odds with the victims. Nothing personal. All happenstance, almost.

The man is most-way-there to hoarder. If they can’t find evidence in this mess, then the case has no chance of ever being closed. When they sit, Bond sits closest to Vanger and the door, in case of a visitor. Q angles his chair away from them. He keeps his face turned just so to them, but Bond sees the roaming eyes. Looking, searching, not quite finding.

Bond takes point on the interrogation this time, although the man keeps breaking into other languages. He’s not sure how much Q picks up. He hopes not much. 

“Mr. Vanger,” Q breaks in abruptly. “This is your nephew, Martin, is it not?” He stands, tapping at a photo hung on the wall, just one of many, lined up in crooked rows and bringing to mind Henrik’s perfectly straight rows of flowers. These photos are not so innocent underneath all the smiles and handshaking. Portraits of political party meetings, mostly.

Both Bond and Vanger stand to look at the picture in question; it takes a moment, but Bond sees what Q sees: an emblem on a jacket of Martin Vanger. One that looks familiar.

 

 

“Here it is.” Q pulls the photo out in question – the one of a boy in a jacket with a matching emblem. 

“Yes. It’s there. It’s right there!” Bond shouts. He doesn’t know why there’re there, going over the facts when they know. 

“We can’t be absolutely certain. This simply puts Martin in the rough time and place of the murder in ’67.” Q flashes through papers, photos, stained napkins – everything flashes past in his hands. The things they know and the things they don’t know, paraded in front of him.

“It’s enough.”

“Give me time. Just a little time. There’s no harm in another hour at this point. He’s not someone we spoke to enough – “

“I’ll give you an hour. Then I’m going to his house and knocking.”

Q stops his frantic search to look up at him; Bond stops too. The looks are longer now – they started when they met and stopped after the counselor and started again. Time ticks down for them. They both know it, and the thought of an end to this case makes Bond ache. 

“I’ll look through everything on Martin Vanger.”

“Raise me if you find anything to contradict. Otherwise, I’ll see you when it’s done.” Bond isn’t waiting for Q. He’s going now. The truth usually eats his gut whereas his suspicions make his mouth taste bad. His sides ache now, the truth felt right down to the bone.

“You’re going alone?”

“That’s always been my end of the deal. You research, I execute.” 

He has to resist the urge to punch something at the look on Q’s face, the first time he’s looked vulnerable in their acquaintance, and he’s not sure if it’s concern for him or not.

 

 

The woods outside the house are too dense for anyone even remotely close on the roads to see anything inside. It makes it easy. Easy to maintain a façade in daylight and something else entirely different in the night. Bond doesn’t even need to break in; the glass door slides open without hesitation. It’s clear within a few steps in that no one is home.

Seven paces across the kitchen. Five more down the first hall. Into a calm bedroom, nothing amiss. Nothing in the drawers worth noting, no hidden safes or cameras. 

Five paces down the hall. Check the closets, the laundry room. Another bedroom. Still nothing. Three short paces down a side hallway. Locked door. No door knob. Nothing to grab onto. Too thick to kick in.

“Q, I’ve seem to run into a door that won’t open,” he says as soon as the line connects. “It’s electric. The house has some kind of operating system for it. Can you crack it for me?”

“It’s been forty-nine minutes, 007.” Q is typing; he hears it like rain in the background. 

“And did you find anything substantial enough to prove this isn’t our man?”

A pause. Then, “No.” 

The door in front of him opens, noiseless. Not a creak or breath of air to warn him. Bond sees a distance light in the dark, goes down some stairs into a fully decorated cellar. Decorated in large cages and metal carts of pliers and knives. A white wall and a video camera.

“Right, Q, I think I’ve found – “ He stops, hearing it just in time to turn into it.

The whistling of air moving at such momentum that it will stop anything in its path. He barely feels a thing.

 

 

Coming to is instantaneous, like a spark to the plug. It’s the same room in front of him, but he feels his arms pulled back in a harness, feet pulled up off the ground, head pulled back with some kind of collar. It gives him limited visibility. His earpiece is, of course, gone. He thinks of what he last said to Q, hopes he understands Vanger’s found him, and that Q needs to call MI6. 

“I am impressed, Mr. Bond,” Martin Vanger steps out of dim shadows, dark enough to fade but not obscure. “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

His shoulders protest when he struggles in the sling; it’s for show. It’s what Vanger wants to see. His fingers are numb and unresponsive, his eyesight skimming over details instead of focusing. He’s been slipped something. That is new – he doubts Vanger ever drugged victims before. But then again, he’s never killed a man before. 

“It’s strange,” the killer says, tilting his head as he examines him. Rips Bond’s shirt open and unbuttons his pants, fingers hesitating on his waistband. “Never dealt with this before.”

He picks up a large, serrated knife. Typical. Expected. 

“It’s your choice: talk, or we can get to this sooner rather than later.”

Sitting on a low stool, Vanger keeps his eyes on the anatomy in front of him. Grips Bond’s hips, rotates the body just so, looking at the skin, feeling the hard muscle above his hips. Like cattle hung up for slaughter. 

“I’m a man of few words, unfortunately.” The worst part is this man thinks he’s got just some investigator in front of him. He has no idea who Bond is, and if he doesn’t do something quickly, it will stay that way. Bond will die not an average death, but an expected one, except his killer won’t even know it and somehow it will all be the universe’s big joke on him that he was bested by a man who didn’t even realize he was dealing with an agent.

“I really only have one thing to ask myself.” He flips the knife over a nipple, then trails the blade down the southern path of hair.

“There were photos of you. Linked you to the time and place of a murder –“ 

“I don’t particularly care how you found me,” Vanger interrupts, his breathing starting to pick up. It won’t be long now, not if Bond doesn’t do something fast, but his skin is nearly gone from his wrists already where he twists and pulls. He can’t even break the fingers to slip them through – nothing to pull them against besides sheer determination and desperation. 

“What I want to know is how much that boy of yours knows.” The air in the room is suddenly colder, thinner. Bond stops struggling, squeezes his eyes shut for just a moment to remember that Q is safe somewhere, sitting behind a computer, with a phone hopefully, calling MI6. 

“And judging by your silence, he definitely knows. Tell me, Mr. Bond, will your sweet boy be paying me a visit too? Does he know we’re here right now?” The knife is back, digging in enough to drag and occasionally leave shallow cuts, like skid marks. “He’s so lovely. So many feminine qualities. For him, I will make an exception. I’ll give him all the special treatment.”

Snarling, Bond jerks in his harness. Vanger laughs, clicking a remote that lifts him higher by the weight of his shoulders. The collar around his neck constricts, his breathing now almost impossible. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bond, but I have little use for you, so this may be messy.” There’s tarp on the floor, tarp on the walls, then there’s plastic over his head too. “You’ll be messier than the girls, I warrant. More of you to cut.”

He feels the faint sting at first, then a fire by the time Vanger crosses half his belly with the blade. So desperate to breath, his insides could be outside by now, and he couldn’t be sure. 

“Hey!” He barely hears it, the intrusion of someone else onto the scene. He tries to keep his breathing in check – slow, methodic. Help is here, he just has to wait. Just one more second. Two more seconds. Three. Four.

Four paces in the kitchen. Six in the bedroom. Two in the bathroom. A familiar apartment, with familiar rooms and a familiar face. 

Unceremoniously, he is dropped to the floor, the fingers he so desperately wanted to break before aching under the weight of his body at a forced angle. He grunts, losing his last breath of air – hoping, waiting – 

The plastic over his head is torn, and Q’s very worried face fills his blurry vision. Bond tries to yell, ask what he’s doing there, ask where the other agents are, but all he can do is cough and cough and breath. 

“I’ll be back,” Q says, and then he leaves for the briefest moment, pushing something hard onto his stomach. “Don’t bleed out on me before I am.”

“No,” he groans, flipping onto his side. He barely makes out the back heel of Q pursuing Vanger, who he vaguely hears moving across the floors above him. Five steps, four steps, three – he’s outside. His footsteps are staccato – whatever Q did, he at least injured Vanger.

Bond curses; Q didn’t even call MI6. Idiot. Shaking, he tries to crawl forward, find the key to the cuffs, a phone, his radio. Anything. 

He finds nothing. Panting, he lies on his back. Feels his hands behind his back. With his better hand, he grabs his thumb on the other hand and pulls. And screams. With enough blood and a pliable finger, he is able to free his hand. 

 

 

He almost remembers Q returning, faintly recalls the thundering footsteps of a team sweeping the house, definitely doesn’t remember being put in a car. What he first clearly grasps is that his head is in Q’s lap, and the boy’s holding a hand over the mess of Bond’s stomach. He looks pale and shakey – if he had to guess, Q probably looks worse than he even does. 

He thinks he feels his better hand under Q’s and on top of the bloody towels and general mess. Can’t be sure because his other hand demands to be felt instead, the throbbing of life a comfort to the feeling of death that sits on top of his middle section. 

“It’s fine,” Q says. “You’ll be fine. They just – we were so far in the woods. They’re taking us to a hospital now. They’ll patch you up properly there.”

The car ride is certainly bumpy – flying down the country roads, to be sure. They’re not as far from the house as he thought then. How long has it been? Hours? Just an hour?

“You look worried,” he says. Or tries to say. Did he say it? Q is just looking at him, like he might die any moment, but Bond isn’t convinced. He’s died twice already. Knows what it feels like. 

“You’ll be fine.”

All he meant to say is that he’s never seen Q so worried. He misses the looks of apathy and challenge. He knows he’s going to be fine.

 

 

Martin Vanger dies in a car accident, burnt alive. Bond is almost glad – with Q on the pursuit, he’s grateful the younger man didn’t have to shoot him or get anywhere close enough that Vanger could hurt him. He’s still not sure what Q thought he was going to do to apprehend him – finally call for assistance, maybe? 

“I’m not part of your secret operations, Bond, for the last time. I have far less accessibility to them as you seem to think,” Q says, indignant. The subject has been brought up a few times now. 

“But you couldn’t have hacked their systems to let them know where I was?”

“The last time I hacked MI6, they arrested me and held me for a week.”

“You never told me that.” He can imagine what it was like for Q – younger than he is now, scared. Never had a good experience with any kind of system, let alone a government system. 

Shrugging, Q stares into the corner space of the room. Since Bond woke up in the hospital a few days ago, Q has carefully subdued himself back to callous indifference, preferring to sit further away from him, not let his eyes wander too much. Like Bond wouldn’t notice. 

“You saved me,” he says, hoping to invoke the feeling that Q must have had, holding him together once not so long ago.

Almost shyly, Q looks into his lap, his hands sitting palm up. Nothing to occupy them, nothing to type or hold. “I like working with you.”

“I like working with you too.” 

Q is thorough, calculated, meticulous. Things that Bond on his best day often isn’t. He has the skills Bond lacks, but more than that he balances him. And Q, despite what anyone might think glancing at him, is fearless somehow. Maybe because he’s seen the worst already.

“Will you ever tell me how you came to be a ward of the state?”

Q looks up, slightly surprised. “Will there be time?”

“Oh yes. The case isn’t finished yet.” 

 

 

When they meet Anita a second time, it’s a personal confrontation at her house that she cannot ignore. Q sits in the car with the equipment, monitoring her, while Bond waits, smoking. 

“I – I think you’re right. What now? Confront her?”

“I think she deserves to know that the monster she’s been hiding from all her life is gone now, don’t you think?”

“Monsters. You forget her father’s involvement.” Q lingers on the involvement of the father not for the first time. Bond sees the red flags waving.

“The first murders.”

“The first abuse.” Q looks up at him, sickly glow in the dark. “I think you should tell her. Don’t make it easy on her. The only person who loved her unconditionally is dying and thinks she’s dead already.”

“Right.” 

The next morning Anita is called by her given name for the first time in decades. She doesn’t act so surprised that her cover is blown; Bond glances at Q when she asks how he got away and thinks that he knows the feeling. 

 

 

There’s one more night left in the country Anita, or Harriet, now calls home before they board a plane back to London. Their job is done – Harriet is squared away, everything has been reported to MI6, and Bond’s stitches are finally beginning to heal. Forget his hands. They’re useless for now, but the one advantage is that Q now awkwardly scrambles to get things like the door or his cup of coffee for him, which he scowls at. 

“What now?” he asks, bundled up to his chin in sweaters and jackets. Bond lets him fumble with his coat for him, buttoning it higher as they sit in the chill of an old park. He’s not cold at all, but lets Q think he is. When he looks up and sees his smirk however, Q frowns and drops his fingers back into his pockets. 

“I didn’t think it was possible to live in a place more miserable than London.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“You mean why don’t I leave.”

“No.” Bond turns to him on their little bench, sticking slightly because of the frost. “I mean why didn’t you. After your father.”

It’s a match of wits; both staring, neither willing to give for the moment. Q does not appear affected by the question. In fact, Bond waits for him to shrug it off, or deflect. Instead he very evenly replies:

“I tried to kill my father by setting him on fire.” The same fate as Martin Vanger, Bond realizes, and Q got to watch it. “I got most of him by the way.”

There’s no need to ask why. Bond nods, looking away. There’s a frozen statue of a national hero in front of them, and under the icicles struggling to form, it’s rubbed copper in the bends and edges. Heroes don’t last long.

“How many men have you watched die?”

“Three.” There’s no hesitation. “Do you even know how many you’ve killed? Not even seen die, but killed?”

“Perhaps.” He exhales, wishing for a smoke but he doesn’t want to bother with fumbling for a light. “There’s the number in my head, then there’s the number on paper.”

“Funny how we trust whatever’s on paper.”

“Yes. Funny.” 

They know what will happen next. It was inevitable, really, and the way Q looks at him now and the way their bodies make static electricity – it’s just all friction. 

 

 

They fuck that night, and the next morning. When they board the plane, Bond’s got more bruises than he did before, and his stitches are torn out again. His fingers are ruined, right to the bone, and Q –

Q is whole. Not a bruise or mark on him. Never again.

He won’t look at Bond the entire way home.

 

 

Files sometimes, albeit rarely, go missing from MI6. If a certain file on a certain social worker is lost, then Bond doesn’t report it. He does visit the home of the man in question briefly, just to see. 

The man is still alive, and in exterior looks, looks quite well, but he refuses to meet anyone’s gaze, preferring to hurry to his door, looking into the shadows, hesitating on the doorstep, a slight limp in his walk. He’s curious to know what permanent mark Q left on him, but Bond will admit he’s satisfied. He wonders if MI6 even knows what they’ve found in Q.

 

 

“Please tell me the last case was a joke and I’m about to be sent to Istanbul for some lovely extraction,” Bond says, leaning against Moneypenny’s desk.

“In your condition?” She asks, raising an eyebrow without looking at him.

“I’ve been in worse.”

She laughs. “Yeah, I’ve seen you at your worst.”

“And best.” He winks at her, offering his arm when they depart. He walks her out to the car that’s waiting to take her to M, and if he feels a shadow lurking closer than it should, he ignores it. 

His fingers will heal with just another notch in them, and his skin will sew itself together in time without string, but he just doesn’t think he will survive the hole left when he hurts someone that cannot be hurt, someone hurt the most. He meets his equal and he walks away.


End file.
